Georgia Run-Off 2022
How Do Political Campaigns Target Voters?
Methodology
We annotated over 3000 US political advertisers during the 2022 Midterms to try and better understand how campaigns are targeting their ads on Meta platforms (which include Facebook and Instagram). The data source is the Meta Ad Library, most of it taken from the new Audience Tab which shows how much money parties spend on audiences.
Here we zoom in on the Georgia Senate runoff race by only keeping advertisers who:
- advertised in the last 7 days (Nov 21st - Nov 27th 2022)
- advertised in the last 30 days (Oct 29th - Nov 27th 2022) but only if they spend any money on the state of Georgia
Note: Meta only provides 7, 30 and 90 days window for this data and their data lags behind. We will update the report as soon as new data is available.
Overall Stats
First, some overall statistics. Pro-Democrat pages are clearly and consistently outspending pro-Republican pages. Also in terms of volume, Pro-Democrat pages run considerably more ads.
Nov 21st - Nov 27th 2022 (Last 7 Days)
| All Pro-Democrat Pages | All Pro-Republican Pages | |
|---|---|---|
Total Number of Advertisers |
139 |
171 |
Top Advertiser |
|
|
Total Number of Ads |
4,740 |
3,108 |
Total Spend ($) |
1,294,038 |
766,390 |
Oct 29th - Nov 27th 2022 (Last 30 Days)
| All Pro-Democrat Pages | All Pro-Republican Pages | |
|---|---|---|
Total Number of Advertisers |
842 |
753 |
Top Advertiser |
|
|
Total Number of Ads |
51,755 |
20,359 |
Total Spend |
30,424,307 |
14,683,350 |
Spending per Targeting Criteria
How much Money did Campaigns Spend on Targeting Criteria? This graph shows in percent how much of their budget Pro-Democrat and Pro-Republican pages have spent on each targeting criterion. Notably, most advertisers spend the vast majority of their budget (~65%+) on custom audiences, which include custom E-mail lists uploaded by the advertisers.
Nov 21st - Nov 27th 2022 (Last 7 Days)
Oct 29th - Nov 27th 2022 (Last 30 Days)
Top Contested (Interest) Audiences
Here, we show the top most contested interest audiences, i.e. where both Democrats and Republicans have spend considerable amounts of money. Notably, in the last 7 days pro-Democrat pages seem to have targeted more traditionally conservative audiences (people interested in NASCAR, Fishing, and Hunting). In the 30 days window, we can see that overall Republicans have focused on audiences interested in College Football and Small Business owners.
Nov 21st - Nov 27th 2022 (Last 7 Days)
Oct 29th - Nov 27th 2022 (Last 30 Days)
Top Excluded Interests
On Meta, advertisers can also pay to exclude certain audiences. The graph below shows which audiences are being excluded (i.e. how much money advertisers spend on ads that exclude audiences). Interestingly, Pro-Democrat pages seem to both include and exclude likely conservative leaning audiences (NASCAR, Hunting). Pro-Republican pages exclude people interested in Veganism and Toyota Prius.
Nov 21st - Nov 27th 2022 (Last 7 Days)
Oct 29th - Nov 27th 2022 (Last 30 Days)
ZIP Code Targeting
Both Pro-Democrat and Pro-Republican pages target voters in and around cities, most notably Atlanta.
Nov 21st - Nov 27th 2022 (Last 7 Days)
Pro-Democrat Pages
Pro-Republican Pages
Oct 29th - Nov 27th 2022 (Last 30 Days)
Pro-Democrat Pages
Pro-Republican Pages
Gender Targeting
Pro-Democrat pages spend much more money on targeting Women compared to Pro-Republican pages, even compared to the overall lower budget of Pro-Republican pages.
Nov 21st - Nov 27th 2022 (Last 7 Days)
Oct 29th - Nov 27th 2022 (Last 30 Days)
Language Targeting
Both Pro-Democrat and Pro-Republican pages run ads targeted at English-speakers. However, Pro-Democrat pages spend a lot of money on reaching out to Spanish speakers, much more than Republicans.
Nov 21st - Nov 27th 2022 (Last 7 Days)
Oct 29th - Nov 27th 2022 (Last 30 Days)
